Fireball observed in Bethune in 2013

Summary

On July 24, 2013, around midnight, several people in Bethune (Nord, France) observed for a few seconds a silent luminous phenomenon moving across the sky. It was a long and very bright trail clearly resembling a fireball, that is, a meteorite entering the atmosphere. This kind of event is common during certain periods of the year, when the Earth crosses dense areas of space debris, such as meteoroid swarms. Indeed, the GEIPAN and other organizations received numerous similar testimonies in the previous and following nights. However, this specific event was not fully characterized. The GEIPAN classified it as "B", meaning a likely observation of a fireball.